1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle periphery monitoring device configured to monitor the periphery of a vehicle through the usage of a captured image acquired by an imaging device mounted in the vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
There has been disclosed a vehicle periphery monitoring device which calculates a motion vector of an object in real space such as an animal or the like present in the periphery of a vehicle according to position data in time series of the object, determines the level of the contact possibility between the vehicle and the object according to the motion vector, and reports the high contact possibility to the driver when it is determined that the level of the contact possibility is high (refer to Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2001-006096).
However, when the object is a quadruped animal such as a deer or the like, it is commonly difficult to predict the motions thereof; therefore, if the level of the contact possibility is determined on the basis of the motion vector, it is possible that the report would be given out to the driver at a delayed time. On the other hand, despite that the object, such as a human being, of which the motions can be predicted relatively easier, simply shortening the time of giving out the report would make the report frequency to the driver become high in vain.